Concrete Overhang at ATM Crashes, Pins Pa. Truck Driver

Aug. 29--You can't blame Ed Shucosky Jr. for feeling nervous from now on about using a bank drive-through ATM.

The 36-year-old Pittston man was going through the Wayne Bank drive-through by Stroud Mall Tuesday when a 17-ton concrete overhang fell on his utility truck, pinning his right leg and trapping him for more than an hour until emergency crews extricated him.

"All I could think was, 'Get me outta here,'" Shucosky, who helps install traffic signals and street lights, said by phone while awaiting release Wednesday from Lehigh Valley Hospital.

The Luzerne County native and married father of two girls, ages 9 and 4, has been working for Western Electric and Signal in Wyoming, a subcontractor used by Kuharchik Construction in Exeter, for about eight years.

Shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday, Shucosky was part of a crew working on a traffic light control cabinet next to the Wayne Bank parking lot.

"I got a call to go meet another co-worker at another intersection (away from Wayne Bank)," he said. "I got back in the bucket truck and was going to turn around and go through the drive-through to go out to that other location."

As the truck entered the drive-through, "I heard a noise and then something fell on top of me," Shucosky said.

The concrete overhang, which police later estimated to weigh about the same as a loaded school bus, fell onto the bucket truck's hood and windshield.

The weight drove the dashboard and steering wheel down onto Shucosky's right leg, pinning his leg and causing his foot, which had been on the gas pedal, to twist to one side.

"My leg went numb except for a burning sensation," he said. "I started yelling to the guy I was working with and he came over. I couldn't get my right leg free at all. Other people came over and told me the fire trucks were on their way. A woman wearing hospital scrubs brought me a bottled water."

Within an hour, heavy-duty wreckers and construction boom trucks removed the concrete slab from the bucket truck, after which firefighters and ambulance crews took another 20 minutes to extricate Shucosky.

Shucosky was then taken by ambulance to a waiting helicopter and flown to the Lehigh Valley Hospital Trauma Unit.

"I didn't see my leg until I was at the hospital, after they took off my clothes and put me in a hospital gown," he said. "(The ankle) was black and blue and swollen. The doctors told me I suffered a really bad sprain."

Doctors kept Shucosky in the hospital overnight so that the swelling could go down, then took X-rays Wednesday to ensure there were no bone breaks or fractures, after which they released him from the hospital Wednesday afternoon.

"They told me to take a week off from work and do no driving," he said. "My leg is bandaged and I'm on crutches. They told me to slowly put pressure back on it."

After his release, Shucoksy returned to the accident scene late Wednesday afternoon and met with Stroud Area Regional Police accident reconstructionists Ken Palmer and Ruben Torres, who told him the accident is still under investigation.

"I just don't understand what went wrong here," said Shucosky, accompanied by his wife. "I'd like to know what caused that piece of concrete to fall."

Copyright 2013 - Pocono Record, Stroudsburg, Pa.